@scottjenson One killer feature for #Mastodon would be that #newcomers could find such an easy-to-understand #guide like https://fedi.tips/ by @FediTips directly beside the join button!

Coming from a centralized platform, the biggest obstacle is to understand how this decentralised stuff works.
The offical Mastodon sites are "too tech", too complicated.
I only stayed thanks to this great guide!

@scottjenson I mentioned Mastodon to someone recently and they said they'd spoken to a huge fan of it, but they'd told her it took them two years to build their timeline up to be interesting and useful.

Algorithmic feeds are generally terrible, except for newcomers who aren't following anyone yet. I wonder if there's a middle option - a 'sandbox feed' for when you first register here that's made up off hashtags you've indicated are of interest'?

@scottjenson While it is by no means zero, my experience is that the toxicity factor in the fediverse is a fraction of those on other platforms, with Bluesky running a distant second and X somewhat further out than Mars.

That's the killer feature, and I believe it's based on moderation by humans who care about the experience here. Our vulnerability is that those human moderators burn out; that good instances shut down for lack of funding. We're going to need to work out how that becomes sustainable, how we build a culture of donating to our instances when we have the means.

I think it's going to take some time to work that out, because it's a cultural concern, not a technological one. I also think we should be patient and continue to grow organically until we're past that point, or we'll just continue to burn out admins and see good instances shut down.